I am on a survival island, so the cows really don't have much to roam. I would keep them in a fenced area, but 'tis not needed. I'm just curious as to whether or not these cows will despawn? I hope not because I need 'em for food.
Cows will not despawn, like all other passive mobs. If you get to far away and unload the land, they will be rendered as not being there, put when you come back, they will still be there. So for your question, your cows are safe.
not on there own with the chunks loaded, but i use a plugin called clearlagg and it does clear them every few minutes on on of my worlds, to reduce some lagg.
Yes if you go very far away but if you stay on your island then they wont despawn. If you need to leave and dont want your cows to despawn then name them with a name tag and they'll never despawn.
On vanilla they don't. I'm using Mo' Creatures and all my livestock always despawn. I wish there was a way to prevent them from doing that. I even selected the thing that keeps vanilla mobs from despawning with no luck.
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gg dice
They will never despawn. It's just that they might be get unloaded temporarily as the chunk they're in becomes unloaded
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0OtPNZX22RvZVeq4-dHa8GYKOc5lojKX